Chapter 165: Chapter 165

As a radiant halo erupted from his back, the knights and priests present looked at Shan with expressions mixed half with surprise and half with admiration.

“Oh, as expected!”

“It was true…”

Cheryn let out a small sigh of relief as she watched that scene from behind.

Seeing that no reaction had occurred from Ravana, it seemed that at least not every Altoan manifested a halo.

Had it been like this, there would have been no need to feed the potion to everyone from the start, but since that could not be known before trying it, it could not be helped.

Meanwhile, the knights’ interest turned toward their own bodies, which had received the Chorus for the first time.

They trembled at their overwhelmingly heightened physical capabilities.

“Is this the effect of the Chorus?”

“I feel like my body could fly… ugh.”

Tavera, who had been fidgeting restlessly, lost his balance and fell over.

Even though he was a knight far superior to ordinary people at controlling his body, he had failed to adapt to the suddenly surged physical ability.

Seeing that, the others also tried moving their bodies more carefully.

An elderly knight from the royal inspection team groaned softly and spoke.

“It seems we will need time to adjust to this.”

Shan had been able to perfectly control his enhanced body from the beginning, but not everyone could do so.

Especially on a battlefield where life and death hung on a single step forward or back, controlling one’s movements was all the more vital.

The paladins of the Western Holy See had also undergone a separate training process to move while under the periodic blessings of the Chorus.

“Alright, we don’t have much time! Everyone, sit down!”

Cheryn ordered the knights, who were chattering and gauging each other’s physical capabilities, to immediately sit on the prepared apparatuses.

Once all the knights were seated, Cheryn quickly conducted blood sampling and examinations on the five knights using the prepared tools.

Checking multiple people by herself kept her eyes, hands, and feet endlessly busy.

Yet she could not mobilize other mages for this, as mages were inherently a breed crazy about probing mysteries and secrets.

Even if they were fed the potion or whatever, they would employ all sorts of schemes to somehow record what they discovered and sneak it out.

Rather than catching and dealing with each of them one by one, it was far more comfortable for her to work busily alone.

Shan saw that Cheryn’s eyes, as she peered into the inspection tools and jotted down notes, were wide open with excitement.

The sight made him chuckle, looking just like a cat facing an immensely fascinating toy.

Had she not restrained herself to maintain her dignity as queen, she would likely have been muttering her thoughts aloud non-stop.

Tens of minutes later, Shan groaned softly at a throbbing headache and pressed his forehead repeatedly with the joint of his thumb.

He felt a magical power seeping into his inner self.

However, due to his mighty Fighting Spirit and the Ring of Magic Resistance, the potion withered away without fulfilling its complete role.

The priests also wore dazed expressions before soon groaning from headaches and wrapping their hands around their throbbing heads.

Just as heavily intoxicated people could not properly recall what had happened at the time, they instantly forgot everything that had transpired right after consuming the potion.

At that moment, Ravana, who had been grimacing, raised her hand and spoke.

“Forgive me, Your Majesty. It seems a bit of memory remains with me.”

“I, as well…”

As the other knights also reported a similar phenomenon, Cheryn raised her eyes slightly as if somewhat surprised and asked.

“How much do you remember?”

“It is not completely vivid, but it feels like the hazy remnant left after having a dream.”

Hearing the explanation, Cheryn nodded.

“Is that so. It seems there is still room for improvement in the potion. It is fine. Nothing particularly problematic occurred. Everyone worked hard, so you may rise.”

After commending the knights, the Queen then informed the High Priest of what she had discovered.

“First of all, as a result of checking, it seems that the Chorus itself does not impose that great of a physical burden.”

“That is a relief, Your Majesty.”

Upon hearing the story, the High Priest wore a slightly relieved expression.

This was one of the excuses made to magically examine the Chorus.

In fact, it was not merely an excuse, but a necessary matter considering that Shan was the one most likely to receive it.

Had it not been for such a justification, it would have been difficult to persuade the priests, even with Vent’s cooperation.

“However, if one receives the Chorus multiple times within a short period, a problem might arise then. Their body would adapt to the enhanced state and fail to adapt to the state without the blessing.”

“Mmm…”

“Indeed, the instructions we received also contained a similar caution.”

The High Priest nodded in agreement.

The instructions he received here were those that Shan had extracted through the Cardinal.

Afterward, Cheryn let in the people waiting outside to tidy up the interior, then declared the session dismissed.

*

Cheryn and Shan sat opposite each other in the lounge holding various documented papers.

After skimming over the records for a long while, she let out a quiet sigh.

“Phew…”

“How did it go?”

“First of all, I managed to figure out a few things. Regrettably, not completely, though.”

Having opened the topic like that, Cheryn began her detailed explanation.

“First of all, as a result of checking, there is a special pathway crafted inside your body for power to pass through.”

“A pathway?”

“Yes. I realized it when I saw the power of blessing entering inside.”

It was the same principle as a transparent pipe installed in midair; normally, one could not tell what it looked like, but filling it full of water made its shape clearly visible.

“In other words, the halo is activated when an organ inside your body, akin to a magic circle, receives sufficient power.”

“Oh…”

“Normally, the blessing of a single priest probably lacked enough power to activate it. And the halo doesn’t just end with emitting light; it seems to confer benefits to the surrounding knights. That must also be why their memories were not erased.”

Though the exact effect would have to be tested further, for now, it was highly likely to be a resistance to mental attacks.

Since the effect of the memory erasure potion was related to mind magic.

“Ravana had something similar to yours as well. But if what you have is the complete form, hers is more like a component about twenty to thirty percent complete.”

She added that in the bodies of the remaining three individuals excluding the two Altoans, no such pathway had been observed.

In other words, the mysterious organ that created the halo was highly likely a trait unique to Altoans.

“And thanks to this discovery, I came to understand part of the documents from the Altoan ruins we secured previously.”

“Is that so?”

Surprised by the unexpected news, Shan asked back.

The documents obtained from raiding the Altoan ruins in the past were strictly managed by Cheryn, who allowed only a few authorized mages to view and share their contents.

Thanks to the contents extracted from them, not only had various new alchemical potions been developed, but it had also provided immense help in the efficiency of crafting magic tools and in Golem architecture.

Yet according to Cheryn, even this was less than ten percent of the documents’ contents properly deciphered.

Just as dumping all the magic documents possessed by Hasra’s Magic Society onto current Shan would yield no proper result, the magic of the ancient Altoan Empire was immensely higher in level and far more complex than in modern times.

Under such circumstances, who would have thought testing the Chorus would suddenly bring progress on that front?

“Yes. Among the contents of the documents secured at the time, there was something called ‘Body Engraving.’ Because there were no clues attached, I didn’t know exactly what it was, but seeing this makes me understand. The magic circle inside your body is probably a Body Engraving carved directly by the mages of the ancient Altoan Empire.”

“…But I was born nearly a thousand years after the Altoan Empire fell?”

“It’s a miracle of heredity.”

According to Cheryn’s hypothesis, a distant ancestor of Shan (an Altoan who likely belonged to the warrior class) was granted the trait of manifesting a halo when power was injected into his body.

This trait had split into various fragments and lost power by the time of his descendants, but over the next thousand years, after repeatedly scattering and recombining amidst unions between various Altoan couples, it was perfectly assembled in Shan’s body.

“The probability of this happening must be astronomically low. But assuming the Altoan Empire fell a thousand years ago, and those who survived back then lived on until today and left descendants…”

Trailing off her words, Cheryn furiously scribbled all sorts of complex numbers and symbols onto paper.

Though Shan had studied reasonably well, she wrote down a stream of contents he could not possibly follow before reaching a conclusion.

“Even by conservative estimates, the number of Altoans born and passed away since the fall of the Altoan Empire must be in the millions. Isn’t that enough trials for a miracle to happen at least once?”

Furthermore, seeing that Ravana right beside him had about thirty percent of the magic circle engraved in Shan’s body, it was highly likely that there had actually been more people completed like that.

They simply had no opportunity to receive the Chorus solely because they were Altoans.

Having chattered pleasantly for a long while, Cheryn suddenly put on an expression filled with all sorts of complex emotions and spoke.

“It’s good to learn something new… but in the end, it seems true that the five royal houses are cuckoo lineages. Apparently.”

If this hypothesis held, Great Emperor Baren’s true identity would be a high-ranking warrior class from the ancient Altoan Empire.

Thanks to this, it was difficult to entrust research on the matter to other mages as well.

Of course, it was also a problem that had to be continuously researched and definitively clarified someday.

*

Even after that, Cheryn persuaded the priests and conducted several more experiments through the Chorus.

First of all, inside the body of another Altoan knight, Vico, not even ten percent of a magic circle was engraved.

And as a result of bringing over an Altoan student from the knight academy for testing, they learned that those who had not yet awakened Fighting Spirit could not endure the blessing of the Chorus and got injured.

This was information absent from the knowledge provided by the captured Cardinal in the past.

Because injuries occurred during the experiments, the priests refused any further testing, so hereafter they could perform only light ‘training.’

Unlike Shan, who could already handle his power perfectly, other knights who were unskilled at moving while blessed by the Chorus trained in how to move under that state.

As a bonus, Shan occasionally received the blessing of the Chorus openly, strutting about the royal palace while casting a halo and revealing his presence.

As his divine appearance, akin to that of Great Emperor Baren of old, captivated the people, rumors of it spread across the entire capital before long.

Meanwhile, Cheryn was intent on recording the ‘pathway’ drawn in Shan’s body.

Drawing a three-dimensional pathway crafted inside a body onto two-dimensional paper was truly no easy task.

In that process, the effects of the halo could also be analyzed a bit more.

Knights who received the same blessing alongside Shan not only grew physically robust but also gained resistance to various magical attacks, including mental magic.

Cheryn speculated that rather than being intended for the Chorus, this originally demanded a different resource, but the power of the blessing seemed to substitute for it.

When combining the contents of the research documents and ancient relics, it seemed the ancient Altoans had utilized some other magical resource rather than mana residing in mana stones or divine blessings.

As they spent a hot summer repeating various research like that, news arrived from the western land of Horais.

“It seems things are going better than expected over there.”

Cheryn, having summoned the high-ranking knights of the military, showed them the message delivered from Horais a short while ago.

According to what was written, Hakan had landed on the southern coast of Horais and successfully built up a power base over several months.

Using magic bows and leather armor as bait, he coaxed the chieftains of several weak tribes to win their loyalty, and crushed those who coveted them by fighting alongside his aligned allies.

And in this process, the elite troops of Pendia dispatched together with him proved to be a massive help.

Though they lacked the mounted archery skills of the steppe warriors, all of them were heavy cavalrymen tempered in harsh real combat.

Lug in particular gained fame across the land of Horais, being called ‘Long Arm.’

Even the bravest warriors could not withstand his charge as he extended a long lance further out with his long arm.

Having succeeded in rallying around three thousand tribesmen in the southern lands, Hakan conveyed his intention to export five hundred warhorses to Pendia.

Though not a huge number in Horais, it was a transaction that would become a grand asset to Pendia.

“It is fortunate that things are progressing well.”

Roden, having read the contents, nodded with satisfaction.

The other royal knights were also delighted by the news that their comrades were doing well.

Not long after the message arrived, several ships traveled back and forth between Beshalia, passing through Meln Port, and the southern region of Horais governed by Hakan, delivering magic tools and transporting warhorses.

Although about thirty horses perished due to encountering a light storm, the knights were thrilled that a large batch of fine-bred warhorses, hard to raise in Pendia, had entered the realm.

“Oho, is this a warhorse of Horais?”

“Even if they’re not up to those Horais chargers, there are quite a few decent ones.”

A portion of the warhorses obtained in this manner was used to cultivate elite cavalry.

Pendia, where raising horses was difficult due to its mountainous terrain and abundance of monsters, had historically possessed few specialized cavalry aside from knights and squires, but considering that the Libert and Ajun Kingdoms they would fight in the future had many plains, it was necessary to raise a large-scale cavalry force.

And when it came to army raising, Roden was the man for the job, but right around the time they were about to entrust the task to him, joyful news arrived.

“She’s pregnant?”

“That’s how it turned out.”

Roden smiled bashfully and nodded.

At the news that his friend and sworn brother had become a father, Shan felt quite complex emotions.

It was as if he, who had originally felt like an elder brother a few years older than him, had now truly become an adult.

Had Roden heard it, he would probably have insisted that he was originally the older brother and an adult.

“So about that, I think I need to reduce my workload. I know it’s a crucial time, but I want to take care of Venoa.”

“That much is fine.”

As Roden requested, Shan took over the duties Roden had been handling.

Strictly speaking, these were tasks he originally had to do anyway, so there was no reason to refuse.

During the leisure time secured in this way, Roden cared for the pregnant Venoa with all his heart and soul.

Worried that the lady who had come from far-off Libert might get depressed, he introduced various customs and items from her homeland, and tirelessly massaged her arms and legs so she wouldn’t feel uncomfortable.

“If you don’t treat her well when she’s pregnant, the sorrow lasts a lifetime. Don’t forget.”

In the process, advising Shan to do the same if such a situation arose after marrying Cheryn in the future was an added bonus.

*

Things could not always progress smoothly.

A piece of tragic news arrived at the court of Pendia, which had been continuously blooming with laughter.

Strictly speaking, it was news slated to arrive someday.

They had simply hoped it would come a little slower.

Reading the message, Cheryn’s face hardened.

“…What was bound to come has finally arrived. Summon the ministers.”

A short while later, not only the high-ranking knights belonging to Pendia’s military but also administrative officials were all summoned to assemble in the reception hall of the Red Palace.

Cheryn declared to them.

“News has arrived that Libert and Ajun are assembling an allied force. They will likely invade within a month at the shortest, or three months at the longest. Discuss countermeasures for this.”

At the Queen’s declaration that the time of war had finally arrived, anxiety and expectation, excitement and worry welled in the eyes of everyone gathered there.

The sound of their heartbeats was like war drums signaling the grand battle soon to come.